Eliminate police, fire commissions

Every 10 years, Portsmouth reviews its charter, the "constitution" that governs how our mayor, council and commissions do the people's business.

Every 10 years, Portsmouth reviews its charter, the "constitution" that governs how our mayor, council and commissions do the people's business.

We think 2010 would be a good year to amend the charter and abolish the city's police and fire commissions.

The commissions were established at the beginning of the last century to protect the uniformed departments from old-fashioned patronage. By creating an independent citizen body that controlled appointments and promotions, reformers ended decades of councilors hiring their cronies. In those days, the competing party machines used police and fire jobs to reward their foot soldiers.

Today, council candidates don't run — or vote — based on party, and police and firefighters are skilled civil servants who are hired based on examinations and comprehensive tests.

With the original justification gone, today's commissions serve as an intermediary between the council and the police and fire commands.

That can be good, as in recent years when Police Chief Michael Magnant got commission backing to promote the right young officers against some internal opposition. The Police Commission served as a forum to hear the aggrieved, but support the chief.

But more often, the commissions become megaphones for command officers' wishes and staffing pleas. Though these are hard-working citizen boards, we have not seen them initiate changes, reforms or innovations — these come from department leadership.

However, when a budget cut looms, the commissions move at the speed of plight, and voters are treated to hearings where employees who face the axe plead to these intermediary boards for their jobs, bringing in platoons of their supporters.

Over the next three years, the city faces a perfect storm of rising personnel costs — city workers will rise in seniority "steps," which increase their pay, cost of living increases kick in and millions in retirement funding obligations will shift from a cash-strapped state government to cities and towns.

Employee costs will rise 21.4 percent in three years ($3.18 on the tax rate, or $954 for the owner of a $300,000 home), according to city projections.

City councilors will be on the line to decide how much of these rising public payrolls homeowners should pay. They face the wrath of the voters, or the employees, depending on whom they choose to favor.

How much is added by putting two additional citizen commissions into this discussion? While it's true they add valuable citizen oversight of their departments' budgets, efficiency and operations, a police force of 90 full-time equivalents and a 58-person fire department are not so huge and complex that a mayor-city manager form of government can't oversee them through their existing command structures.

Moreover, commissions can't solve the biggest problem ahead with their departments: there won't be enough money at current tax rates to fund the growth in personnel costs.

We have nothing but respect for the many citizens who have given up evenings at home to wrestle with thorny personnel issues and budgets. They have earned the respect of uniformed officers and elected officials alike.

But as the city enters a time of great challenge, a more streamlined way of operating will bring swifter decisions and greater candor between the chiefs and the elected councilors — councilors who alone have the power to vote the tax rate up or down on the chiefs' behalf.

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